


scientific breakthroughs

by starfishing



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Blowjobs with Too Many Teeth, Handjobs with Too Many Fingers, M/M, Mentions of Tentacle Sex, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 07:48:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfishing/pseuds/starfishing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>carlos gets to meet cecil's little girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

As a scientist, Carlos found it convenient that he could discern so very much about Cecil — his mood, his intent, his meaning, his motive — simply by listening to his voice. As his boyfriend, he found it convenient _and_ endearing.

So when Cecil's tone began to regularly dip from rich buttercream to ringing tuning fork (despite himself, Carlos couldn't quite manage to find _scientific_ ways of describing Cecil's voice), he became understandably concerned. The last time this happened was the week following Carlos's first attempt at taking their relationship somewhere more physical. When he'd finally coaxed Cecil into a state of undress, he'd discovered why. Hermaphroditism hadn't been one of the many things Carlos had braced himself for, but the tentacles had been, and ultimately, Cecil's concerns were unfounded. Like the twelve fingers, the three eyes, the second row of razor-sharp teeth and the sentient tattoos, it was just _Cecil_. Dealbreakers were getting harder and harder to come by.

But he'd seen Cecil naked and he'd seen him set ablaze with arousal, all seven tentacles writhing, every inch of him alive with it. He couldn't possibly have any more surprises up his sleeve, could he?

(Unless he was pregnant. Carlos spent three days panicking and trying to subtly work questions about Cecil's internal anatomy into their casual conversations. He only succeeded in confusing and concerning his boyfriend, and got no useful answers besides. The discovery that his 'middle limbs' had 'dropped off' around puberty was in no way illuminating with regards to Cecil's ability to carry a child to term.)

When Carlos finally caved, it was Sunday morning. While it was impossible to tell if Cecil's frosty white eyes were focused or unfocused, his voice was a swirl of milk dispersing in coffee, slow and drifting and sweet. Carlos was staring at the edge of the table, trying to imagine a baby bump, when he decided he couldn't take it anymore.

"Cecil," he said, firmly, to get the man's attention. Two eyes blinked, then the other, as always, and Cecil's voice rounded up into the usual warm buttercream that Carlos suspected was reserved for him alone.

"Yes, sweet Carlos?" A smile curved his lips, small, but enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes.

Carlos cleared his throat and rearranged his napkin before he spoke. "You've been distracted lately," he asserted, and then, to prevent one of Cecil's meaningless pigeon-sounds or one-word murmurs, he added, "Is something on your mind?"

The brief silence that followed was unnerving. Silence always was with Cecil — his eyes gave little away, with no pupils or irises to study, and his many-fingered hands were rarely still. But it didn't last long; they never did.

"Well," he began, the word pitching up, "to be honest, yes. There is something I've been meaning to talk to you about."

Here it comes, Carlos thought. His stomach and heart clenched in time with each other, and he pushed his nearly-empty plate away. Cecil was pregnant, and Carlos was going to have to take responsibility. He would, of course. What kind of man would he be if he didn't? His mother would disown him.

Maybe it wouldn't be all bad, having a daughter or a son to follow in his footsteps, to teach the ways of science. But was Night Vale really any place to raise a child? People did it all the time, he reasoned. It must not be too bad. And Cecil was raised in Night Vale. He'd turned out all right. They could make this work.

"— daughter will be here soon. I'm sure I should have said something sooner, but I was concerned that it might be... well, too _much_ , you know?"

"Wait, _soon_?" Carlos sputtered, despite his every good intention to be calm and rational and understanding about the situation. "We've only been dating for three months! How — oh. _Oh_. The gestation period must be different." His voice dropped into a frantic mumble. "Couldn't be more than a month along, right? Six weeks?" The image of a full-grown person bursting from Cecil's chest erupted in full Technicolor and surround sound in his brain.

"Carlos?" If Cecil hadn't laid a delicate, six-fingered hand on his arm when he'd spoken, Carlos probably wouldn't have heard him at all. 

He looked up into concerned milky eyes. "I'm fine," he said reflexively. "How soon?"

Cecil kept his hand where it was. "Next Monday. She's being dropped off at the station. Are you _sure_ you're okay?"

"Dropped off?" Carlos echoed. The visions of chestbursters were abruptly replaced with implausible Seussical storks. He felt like he'd missed something. There were a number of important questions on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't quite formulate them.

Cecil's brows knit, the two of them together and the third in an expressive downward quirk. "Her father used to live in Night Vale, but he took her and moved away when she was very young. He said —" There was a hitch in the sentence, not the sound of an almost-sob or the catch of a surprise, but a stumbling block nonetheless. His eyes shifted, brows lifted to something less emotional, and his voice — his _voice_.

It darkened, deepened, from a soft cream to something dark and rich and bitter, and despite the obvious anger ( _fury_ ) in every syllable, Carlos felt something prickle down his spine that was much less appropriate than fear. Cecil was rarely angry at all, and Carlos had never heard him _this_ angry. 

"He said that Night Vale," Cecil went on, enunciating as meticulously as he did on the air, "was no place to raise a child."

The pieces fell into place, soothing the last of Carlos's nerves. _Cecil's_ daughter, not _their_ daughter; a child from a previous relationship. She was coming to visit, presumably. 

"Why is she being brought here, then?" he asked.

Cecil's expression lightened, and he broke into a grin, all straight teeth and no sharp ones. "He's in prison," he said, sugar flooding his tone. "And evidently, Child Services in Minnesota didn't know what to do with her."

Carlos could imagine why. The daughter of someone like Cecil (beautiful as he was) had the potential to be... well, troubling. ( _Monstrous_ had come to mind first, but that was a word near the top of Carlos's List of Things Never to Say to Cecil Baldwin, which had just now also seen the addition of the phrase _Night Vale is no place to raise a child_.)

"So she's coming here... to stay?"

The first hint of apprehension crept into Cecil's voice, the tang of tart fruit filling in a light and buttery pastry. "Yes. Is that... is that okay?"

Carlos found himself somewhat taken aback by the question. "What if it wasn't?"

Cecil spoke like a fallen pound cake: perfectly sweet and immensely heavy. He spoke with regret. "She's my daughter, Carlos," was all he said, but Carlos heard the rest, and he was glad. He was glad that his perfect hair wasn't enough to motivate a father (mother?) to disown his child.

"Of course it's okay," he said, and laid his hand on top of Cecil's. Cecil's smile blossomed instantly, lashes dropping, and Carlos smiled in reply.


	2. Chapter 2

There was just a week before Cecil's daughter ( _Emilie_ , Cecil said proudly, the name rich and impossibly warm) came to stay, and Carlos had what he felt was a series of rather important inquiries weighing on his mind. He managed to restrain them for a few days, but ultimately, as always, his scientific curiosity got the better of him.

The two of them were standing in a room that had, the last time Carlos was here, been a rather extensive storage space full of various musical instruments, weapons, and multiple jars of glowing insects that Carlos was not entirely convinced were fireflies, seeing as how Cecil claimed he'd caught them as a child. Aside from an artfully-arranged series of luminescent jars on a shelf, there was no trace of the room's previous inhabitants. Now, the walls were painted in a pleasant shade of lavender, a sheer-paneled canopy bed perched atop an inexplicably large (possibly) sheepskin rug dominating the center of the room. Everything was decked out for a princess, ostensibly, and while Carlos couldn't help smiling at how obviously doting a father (mother?) Cecil was, he would also not be deterred from his questioning.

"Cecil," he said.

Cecil turned luminous eyes and an equally luminous smile on him. "Yes, dear Carlos?"

"Would you mind," Carlos began, fairly certain he already knew the answer, "if I asked you some _scientific_ questions?"

Pleased as expected to be the object of Carlos's scientific interest, Cecil dropped onto the edge of the bed, propping himself on his elbows. Carlos reflexively quashed the urge to come closer and wreck Cecil's sharp creases and flawlessly knotted tie. 

"Of course not! I would be honored to have you ask me some _scientific_ questions." He mimicked Carlos's inflection on the word 'scientific,' which had been deliberately suggestive. Carlos only wished he'd thought it through beforehand, because hearing it parroted back from Cecil wasn't helping his desire to unravel the man.

Clearing his throat, Carlos glanced around the room and seated himself in a royal purple beanbag chair. It was decidedly not meant for a grown man. He shifted uncomfortably until he spotted a quirk of Cecil's lips and brows that suggested he was watching.

"Come sit on the bed," Cecil said smoothly, running his fingers over the bedspread. 

Carlos looked on cagily (there was a high chance Cecil was preparing to seduce him) before he hefted himself up off of the dainty beanbag and repositioned himself on the edge of the mattress, turning to half-face Cecil. 

"Your daughter was — fathered by another man?" he asked, pulling out his Blackberry to begin taking notes. At Cecil's nod, he clarified, "And she is your _biological_ daughter?"

"Yes, of course." There was a chuckle attached to the words, and Cecil offered no further explanation. As Carlos suspected, he didn't seem to grasp the peculiarities of the situation. (That is to say, they probably weren't peculiarities in Night Vale.)

"So, then... did you give _birth_ to her?"

One of Cecil's hands crept over his stomach in that universally fond and protective maternal gesture. "I know," he said with a playful, preening note like unexpected cherry mousse in a chocolate, "it's hard to believe, isn't it? Some mothers never get their body back, the poor dears."

Carlos's thumb moved over the keypad. Carried baby to term, he typed, and then What is term?

"Was the pregnancy normal?"

"Well, there was nothing unusual about it." Cecil was sitting back again, studying the gauzy underside of the canopy above. "I grew four extra tentacles — some mothers wind up with as many as sixteen, so I got lucky, really — and the nightmares lasted almost the whole time."

Four extra tentacles, Carlos typed. He paused. There were already seven tentacles that didn't look like they could plausibly be hidden the way they were, and it didn't make much sense to grow _more_ tentacles when you were planning to force a baby out in the vicinity. Maybe he was missing another piece.

"Where did the extra tentacles manifest?"

Cecil's hand reappeared, this time to untuck his shirt from his hip and pull it up, displaying some of his tattoos. They were the small black spots, two on each side, that rarely shifted with the others.

That made much more sense. Two per side - meant to protect baby? "And what about the nightmares?" Carlos pressed. "They're normal?"

"Aren't they?" A politely perplexed note entered Cecil's voice, the one that always did when Carlos implied that something in Night Vale was unusual. "The horrorterrors can't just enter your body without a price of _some_ kind."

His blase tone made Carlos shake his head slightly. Horrorterrors. "Did you just call children 'horrorterrors?'"

Cecil's eyebrows did inexplicable things. "The horrorterrors place the children in their mothers," he said, "to replace the monster."

Carlos transcribed that sentence word for word. "And the horrorterrors give you nightmares?" 

"So does the monster," Cecil pointed out reasonably. It seemed reasonable enough, anyway, when he said it like that.

When Carlos finished his current notes, he asked, "And was the birth normal?"

"A little long," Cecil admitted. His hand was on his stomach again, tracing a slow line along the buttons of his shirt. "Maybe if I'd had more tentacles to help it along, it would have gone quicker, you know?"

Carlos skipped up to append to an earlier note: Meant to help the birth along.

"How do the tentacles assist in the birth?" On the list of questions Carlos never thought he'd ask, even in the name of science, that one was pretty high. 

Cecil's hand dropped, pulling his shirt up fully this time. Carlos let his eyes light on the familiar lines of the tattoo, long and zigzagging the length of Cecil's stomach from diaphragm to somewhere south of his belt. 

"They help pull the baby from the mouth," Cecil said, and very abruptly, Carlos understood the long, zigzagging lines.

They were _teeth_. There was a massive vertical mouth tattooed on his boyfriend's stomach, and at some point in time, a baby girl had been pulled out of it by a quartet of tentacles. The fact that Carlos was more fascinated by this revelation than disgusted or alarmed spoke volumes about his ability to adapt. 

"Carlos?" Cecil was sitting up, his voice laced with a soft whipping cream of concern. 

Carlos smiled at him reflexively. "Sorry," he said. "Science."

Cecil's own smile came slowly, but it was warm, and when he lie back down, he turned himself on the bed to put his head in Carlos's lap. "Science," he murmured.


	3. Chapter 3

Carlos, like the rest of Night Vale, was made aware of Emilie's arrival just minutes after it happened. He was listening to Cecil's radio show, as he did these days (because honestly, a man can only go so long without that radiant french vanilla voice in his ears), and tentatively interpreting the weather segment as 'it will probably be hot and a little bit windy, but it could get pretty chilly tonight.' It was hard to put a finger on precisely when he'd started understanding the weather in Night Vale, but it was hard to put a finger on anything around here, anyway. Carlos wasn't going to think too hard about it.

Cecil's voice chimed in post-weather, all lit up with sweet lemon and air.

" _Listeners, I have some_ wonderful _news_ ," he said in almost a singsong. " _Today is the second most joyous day of my life. I am so very proud, dear listeners, to introduce to you my daughter, Emilie Olivia Baldwin-Keyes. Say hello to our listeners, Emilie!_ "

Carlos awaited what he imagined would be a voice made of sunlight and honeysuckle. She was Cecil's daughter, after all. But the only sound that came over the air was the crackle of static, and then, abruptly, the high-pitched squeal of feedback. Cecil's voice returned momentarily, now the sickening sweetness of one slice of cake too many.

" _She's feeling a little shy — she's only nine. She'll warm up, I'm sure._ "

It was obvious — to Carlos, at least, and he hoped for Cecil's sake that he was the only one — that Cecil was a little wounded by Emilie's lack of responsiveness. Of course, she'd just lost her father, and based on what Cecil had told him, she'd been less than a year old when she moved out of Night Vale, so Cecil was as good as a stranger to her. This wasn't going to be easy for either of them.

Any of them, Carlos corrected himself. Cecil had twisted his arm (in an analogy where 'twisted' meant 'murmured in' and 'arm' meant 'ear') to convince him to come to dinner at his house. He wanted Carlos to meet Emilie. 

Carlos wasn't reluctant to meet the girl, or even (apprehensive though he was at the role) to be a part of her life as her mother's boyfriend, but neither was he looking forward to the painfully awkward first meeting. Still, Cecil would have to suffer through it, and work his way through the slow thaw of the mother-daughter relationship, so Carlos supposed he could stomach it, too.

They were set for dinner Friday night, so that Emilie would have some time to settle in. Carlos and Cecil met for lunch on Tuesday and Thursday, and both times, Cecil was dreadfully subdued. His smiles offered no teeth, his voice only a tired sort of warmth. On Thursday, Carlos nudged his foot beneath the table and asked if he was all right.

"Oh, you know," Cecil said, making indecipherable gestures with slow hands, "the adjustment period is tough." He was still smiling. 

Carlos caught one of his hands and interlaced their fingers, a simple show of affection made complicated by the mismatched number of digits. Over the course of a month or so, he'd learned to slot their fingers together and leave Cecil's thumb free to move, stroking circles and lines on the inside of Carlos's palm. It came naturally now.

"It's not... quite going the way you expected, is it?" he asked, studying Cecil's milky eyes. The drop of all three eyelids confirmed it.

"Not... quite." Cecil's voice was low, a gradual drip of blueberry syrup. "She's a bit... _distant_."

Carlos felt his mouth twist with sympathy. He'd never made a habit of empty reassurances or condolences, so he didn't say 'she'll come around,' though it was the first thing that came to mind. Instead, he said carefully, "Give her time. It might get better."

Though Cecil offered a smile, Carlos was starting to wonder if he stood a chance at all. Cecil was charming, disarming, charismatic to a fault. Hell, he'd gotten under Carlos's skin, hadn't he? And if he couldn't break through this little girl's defenses, what were the odds that Carlos (fumbling, graceless Carlos, who still couldn't fathom why someone like Cecil called him _perfect_ ) could win her over?

Ready or not, Friday was hurtling toward them (figuratively, not literally, as Fridays and also Wednesdays sometimes did), and Carlos found himself more anxious with every hour. Too soon, it was seven o'clock, and he was standing on Cecil's doorstep with the salad he'd promised he'd bring.

He rang the doorbell, listening to the deep timbre of the bell tolling from far beneath the house, and brushed at the front of his khakis. When the door opened, he looked up, smiling, and was met not by Cecil's shimmering white eyes, but seven perfectly normal brown ones.

Emilie blinked, first the eye in the center of her forehead, then the other three pairs in quick succession — the two where eyes ought to be, the two on her cheekbones and the two just above her jaw. The uppermost eye stared directly, unnervingly at his face, while the other six roamed to take in his clothes, his shoes, his hair, the salad, each pair independent from the others.

"Hello," he said, vaguely aware that his smile had frozen like a deer in the spotlight of an ominous black helicopter. "You must be Emilie. I'm —"

"Carlos," she said, and there were three voices, all speaking in unison. "Carlos the scientist." One of the voices was exactly what he'd expected: songbirds and sunbeams and spring breezes, just what you'd imagine Cecil's daughter would sound like. Another was a rasping, husky alto with clicking consonants, and the last (by far the most startling) was a deep baritone, richer and lower than his own. 

"Your mother's mentioned me?"

"Of course I have." Cecil's voice was an immense relief. Carlos looked up, over Emilie's head, and felt his smile grow. Cecil returned it, all bright white teeth, and took the salad from his hands, kissing his cheek. "Come in."

The table was set flawlessly, and as they settled into their chairs, Carlos saw Emilie stretch a tentacle across the table to adjust a fork near her mother's plate. The tentacle, a vibrant, glowing violet, retreated into the palm of her hand when it was finished.

"Do you like salad?" Carlos asked her, trying not to look as though he was stealing glances at her hands.

Emilie turned her eyes to the salad contemplatively. "Is there meat in it?"

"Chicken." Carlos was encouraged by the question.

"I don't eat meat," she answered. Carlos's face fell.

Cecil caught his eye. "The pasta is vegetarian," he said. Carlos could hear the nerves in his voice, and it was both reassuring and decidedly not.

Emilie ate in silence, consuming an alarming amount of pasta in an alarmingly short time. When her plate was clean, she snaked a tentacle over her plate to pick up her glass of something green and milkshake-like in consistency.

"What kind of scientist are you?" she asked Carlos when the glass was half-empty.

'A pseudoscientist' was the correct answer these days, but Carlos elected for the slightly less self-deprecating response. "I went to school for geology and seismology," he said.

"So you came to Night Vale because of the earthquakes?"

There was a brief, stunned silence at the table. Emilie shifted a pair of eyes to her mother, the rest focused intently on Carlos.

"Well... yes," Carlos admitted. "That was what drew my attention initially. But there are a lot of things to study in Night Vale."

Emilie snaked a tentacle into the salad bowl and it returned with a cherry tomato, which she ate with too many sharp teeth. All of her teeth were sharp. "Like what?"

Carlos met Cecil's eyes, which were, as usual, fairly indecipherable. His brows were knit, though, and he offered a shrug. Carlos returned it before he looked back to Emilie, who had now devoted two pairs of eyes to her mother, one of them narrowed in suspicion.

"Time passes differently in Night Vale," Carlos offered. "More slowly. Roughly eighty-five percent of the speed of the rest of the world. I'm not sure that it always has; I think it's been slowing down, but very gradually."

All of Emilie's eyes had returned to him now, and though Carlos should probably have felt anxious with seven eyes trained so dedicatedly on him, he found that he really wasn't. 

"And there's a very small city beneath Lane 5 of the bowling alley," he continued, "full of very small people."

The eyes widened in the same order they blinked in. "Can we visit there?"

"No," Cecil and Carlos said in quick unison. Carlos cut a glance at Cecil, who had abandoned a sip of brandy in his rush to answer. 

"No," Cecil repeated, less urgently. "It's very dangerous."

"Dad said this whole town was dangerous," Emilie replied, pursing her lips.

"That's how you know the underground city is _really_ dangerous," said Carlos. "I almost died there." He watched as Cecil's eyes dropped to his glass and he took a long sip.

Emilie folded five-fingered hands, tentacles emerging to twine together between her palms, and rested her chin on them. "Tell me," she demanded.

Uncertain, Carlos glanced again at Cecil. He didn't mind telling the story, especially since it seemed to interest Emilie so much, but he wasn't sure Cecil wanted to hear it. He was met, however, with a reassuring smile and a voice like honey.

"Go on."


	4. Chapter 4

By the time dessert was finished, Emilie was stifling yawns and trying to coerce Carlos into telling her more about his research team. She'd memorized their names already, and would interrupt every mention of them to clarify — 'Tony is the botanist, right? And Alice is the biologist?' Carlos had been concerned at first that she might grow bored if he talked too much about science, but it seemed to be quite the opposite.

Emilie's appetite for scientific discussion not only rivaled her mother's, but it didn't seem to stop at enamored commentary. She had a quick comprehension for facts and formulas, and reached conclusions at breakneck speeds that Carlos couldn't help thinking would astonish his team. When Cecil turned his wrist to look at his watch, a pair of Emilie's eyes lit on him and her whole face turned into an arsenal of pleading gazes and pouting lips.

"It's late," Cecil said, setting his glass down, and met Emilie's assault with a gently arched brow. Carlos had to admire his resolve in the face of such an adorable girl (and wonder when, exactly, seven eyes, sharp teeth and tentacled hands stopped being dealbreakers for 'cute' status).

"Cecil, no," Emilie said firmly, her deepest voice coursing in beneath the others to make a deliberate showing. "I want to hear more about Diane's study of Night Vale's inner atmosphere."

Cecil didn't flinch at his daughter's defiance or her baritone — or (and Carlos thought this was the most remarkable) her use of his first name, instead of 'Mom.' "Perhaps," he said instead, "if you ask very nicely, Carlos will tell you more when he puts you to bed."

Every idle motion at the table stopped: Carlos folding and refolding a napkin, Emilie's tentacles molesting her empty glass, and, strangely, the pleasant sway of the flowers in the centerpiece vase, which Carlos had hardly noticed were moving until they stopped. Even now, he couldn't bring himself to inspect them too closely (though he'd remember to mention it to Tony later), since he was a bit preoccupied with the notion of tucking a little girl into bed and telling her a story.

He'd never had to deal with children — his younger brother had a son, but Carlos had moved away from home before that had happened, and hadn't even met his nephew until the boy was seventeen. The idea of being left alone with a little girl was downright alarming. What if he upset her? What if she started crying? (Would all seven eyes cry, like all three of Cecil's did?)

But it didn't look like he had any way out of the deal. Emilie had turned all of her shining brown eyes on him, and Cecil was smiling a knowing, unfortunately charming smile in his direction.

"Could you pretty please tell me more about the inner atmosphere?" asked Emilie, the baritone and alto receding somewhat to give way to the saccharine voice that she must have inherited from Cecil. 

Carlos never actually stood a chance.

Luckily for all of them, Emilie did not have a sudden psychotic break, a fit of tears or any form of conniption while he was putting her to bed. She settled in beneath the blankets, pulled them up to her chin and drew a stuffed grey cube with hearts on it close to her chest. Carlos told her everything he could about Night Vale's inner atmosphere, though in truth, Diane didn't know very much for sure — including whether or not there actually _was_ a verifiable 'inner atmosphere.'

When her eyes were drifting closed in alternating pairs, Carlos let his words trail off, and replaced the phrase 'refracting sunlight' with 'sweet dreams.' Emilie murmured something indistinct, and the only voice that spoke was melting whipped cream.

He closed the door quietly behind him and crept down the stairs to the den, where he expected to find Cecil, but found an empty couch. Taking a seat, he also took a breath, and let it out in a sigh.

Tiring as the evening had been, he thought it had gone rather well. There were a few bumps at dinner, sure, but no disasters, and Emilie had taken to him much more than he'd expected.

Probably much more than Cecil had expected, too. Carlos frowned as he recalled Cecil's dispirited smiles over lunch on Thursday. Cecil was trying so hard to be a good mother, and Emilie, while not hostile, seemed both unimpressed and apathetic to his attempts. Then along came Carlos to talk about _science_ , of all things, and Emilie, so far as he could tell, adored him. Cecil would have every right to be hurt and resentful about it, wouldn't he?

A pair of hands on his collarbone, slipping beneath his shirt, pulled Carlos from his thoughts. He tilted his head back to the sight of warm eyes and a warmer smile, just before Cecil leaned down to kiss his forehead.

"She's asleep," Carlos volunteered, and then, "Listen, Cecil, I hope you're not upset."

"Upset?" Cecil echoed, back to the warm buttercream that Carlos so preferred. "Why would I be upset?"

"Well —" Pulling back from Cecil's touch (as it was much easier to concentrate that way), Carlos turned on the couch to face him. "Emilie... really warmed up to me, I guess, and I thought —"

One long, slim finger held up in front of Cecil's lips made Carlos fall silent. 

"Shhh, Carlos. You're _perfect_." 

The word resurrected a thousand past echoes of itself, in tones ranging from cotton candy to Pop Rocks to dark cayenne chocolate, and the voice that spoke it this time (a rich cinnamon chocolate mousse) brought a warmth with it. Carlos felt it rush up into his face.

"I've been trying to get through to Emilie all week," Cecil went on, and Carlos watched with an even mixture of incredulity and intrigue as one long leg slid over the back of the sofa, carrying Cecil with it. He settled beside Carlos, one leg entangling with his, and insinuated himself so thoroughly into Carlos's personal space that Carlos could smell the coconut and orchid of his shampoo. "Now I know what she's interested in, and how to connect with her and make her happy. Why would I be upset about that?"

Carlos smiled, ducking his head in a halfhearted attempt to avoid Cecil's invasively adoring gaze. "I'm happy I could help."

He should have expected what came next — the gentle scrape and prick of two rows of teeth on the sensitive skin of his neck — but it surprised him anyway, and the jolt went straight to the pit of his stomach. 

"Cecil," he said, even as he tilted his head to allow Cecil to continue, "your daughter's right upstairs."

"So she is," murmured Cecil, and then, in that dark, spicy chocolate tone that always, _always_ proved dangerous, "I guess that means you'll have to keep quiet, darling Carlos."

 _Great_.

Carlos supposed he was fortunate that he'd grown up sharing a room with his brother. He had plenty of practice in getting off quietly. The trick was doing it when Cecil was holding the reins.

He lie back on the couch, his eyes on Cecil as he nimbly divested Carlos of his shirt. Too many digits trailed down through the hair on his chest, down his stomach to the buckle of his belt, and Carlos exhaled slowly, reaching down to rake his own fingers through blond locks. 

"Why don't you tell me," Cecil said against Carlos's khakis, "about the fault line running under Night Vale?" His voice was impossibly smooth, impossibly low, and its proximity sent goosebumps racing down Carlos's arms in waves. 

" _Cecil_." It was a token protest at best. Cecil kept flicking his eyes upward as he worked oh-so-slowly at Carlos's belt, the direction of his gaze given away by the flutter of pale lashes. Carlos couldn't hope to resist.

Taking a deep breath as his belt was pulled free, he tipped his head back and fixed his eyes on the ceiling. "Night Vale lies on a transcurrent fault," he began, pausing at the sound and feel of his zipper being drawn down, "that would appear to extend only to the city limits on the north and south sides. It runs right down M— mm. Main Street."

Six fingers wrapping around the base of his cock had been the most bizarre feeling the first time it happened, but Carlos had quickly adjusted — it was like adjusting to ice cream being more delicious than usual. Nothing to complain about.

Tonight, Cecil's hands were slow, deliberate and playful, fingertips tapping teasingly up the underside of Carlos's shaft. Carlos swallowed and closed his eyes. Where was he?

Transcurrent fault. Right.

"A transcurrent fault is a kind of strike-slip fault...." Carlos trailed off. One of Cecil's hands had dipped in beneath him to cup his balls, and how the hell was he supposed to remember _anything_ about tectonics when Cecil was doing _that_? 

"Strike-slip fault?" Cecil murmured, lips pressed to the base of his cock. Carlos groaned softly in exasperation (it was supposed to be exasperation, at least) and continued.

"The plates move against each other laterally—" That was all he managed before the white-hot wetness of Cecil's mouth closed around him, and Carlos covered his own mouth with one hand to muffle the sound he made. When he pulled it away again, he breathed out, "Instead of the vertical motion of — m-most _ahh_ — most plates."

As if cued by the phrase 'vertical motion' (and he probably was), Cecil raised his head, letting Carlos's length nearly slip out of his mouth before he lowered it again, hollowing his cheeks with a slow suck. Carlos panted, caught between giving in to pleasure and giving in to Cecil's ridiculous request.

In the end, the faint pressure of Cecil's teeth won out, and Carlos buried his hands in Cecil's hair. Pressing his lips closed to keep himself quiet, he raised his hips. Cecil's throat tightened around him — Cecil's throat, his lips, his tongue, all absolutely _magic_ with the sounds they made and the sounds they made Carlos make, currently being choked down with every ounce of restraint he had.

Carlos had been taken aback at first by Cecil's eagerness to blow him. It wasn't something Carlos had ever enjoyed doing, himself, but Cecil loved it. There were evenings when Carlos had come over for dinner after they'd spent all week apart, and he'd barely gotten in the door before Cecil was on his knees in front of him. Such were the dubious joys of dating a younger man, Carlos figured — and a man whose mouth was his greatest talent, in every conceivable way.

He let go of Cecil's hair with one hand when he came, and even though he covered his mouth and turned his head toward the back of the sofa, he still felt like he was too loud. God, if Emilie woke up....

But when his head cleared and his toes stopped curling, and Cecil climbed up his body to lie down against his chest, there was no sound from upstairs. Carlos breathed slow, Cecil's weight a comfortable warmth on top of him, and closed his eyes. He couldn't fall asleep here, of course; Emilie might find them in the morning. But Cecil was snuggling close, and it wouldn't hurt to just rest here for a minute, right?

Just for a minute.

**Author's Note:**

> originally a kink meme prompt [here](http://nightvalecommunitykink.dreamwidth.org/822.html?thread=133942#cmt133942). as you can see, I didn't follow it to the letter, but requestanon should be credited for their idea.


End file.
